Belgium

Jacek Walendowski

Jacek has 14 years of experience as a professional economist in the fields of evaluation, regional, research and innovation policy. As a project manager of several EC funded projects, he has provided strong leadership for the team, setting its overall direction, and ensuring each member was equipped with requisite background knowledge. He has also often acted as a rapporteur of various high-level events and conducted numerous interviews.

Since its launch in 2010, he has been coordinating the Regional Innovation Monitor Plus initiative (DG Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs), which provides a unique platform for sharing knowledge and know-how on major innovation and industrial policy trends in the EU regions.

Jacek joined the Belgium office of Technopolis Group in September 2004, as a consultant responsible for carrying out innovation policy studies. Prior to joining the company, Jacek worked from May 2001 to August 2004 for an international consultancy (ADE S.A., Belgium), where he was involved in numerous projects covering various areas of innovation, research and development in the SME sector. Earlier in his career, Jacek worked at the European Commission (2000-2001) in the Directorate-General for Enterprise, Unit Innovation Policy, where he supervised a number of major studies on innovation.

He holds an economic degree from the Business and Administration School (Warsaw), as well as European studies degrees from College of Europe (Natolin) and Central European University (Budapest). He is fluent in three languages (Polish, English, and French), and speaks Portuguese.

About Technopolis Group

Technopolis Group is the pre-eminent provider of policy advice and support to decision making - grounded in evidence and experience - to organisations and people with a mission to address environmental and societal challenges and achieve economic growth by means of science, technology, innovation and education.